Blether

My pleasure. Those pithy few sentences are part of the very first two-and-a-half-page section of that book - excluding the introduction / notes & foreword - in which she sets out a food manifesto that should be read by anyone who cares to eat, never mind cook. "... when we say to friends, 'we'll just have an omelette and a salad and a piece of cheese,' what we mean is 'we won't make any fuss, but what we will have will be well chosen, will make a satisfying meal and will go nicely with a glass of wine'... " "... If a dish does not turn out to be quite as it was at the remembered auberge in Normandy, or at the restaurant on the banks of the Loire, is this a matter for despair ? Because it is different, as by force of circumstance it must be, it is not necessarily worse." Sorry if you are already familiar with it.

As a child I enjoyed making biscuits, biscuit bars & sweets like truffles or toffee or fudge or the like, as well as the ubiquitous chocolate-cornflake things, marshmallow-caramel rice krispie stuff & Royal Scott - based fudgy chocolate bar. Somewhere in there was a crushed-cornflake chocolate bar with a mint-cream-then-hard-chocolate covering, and of course millionaire shortbread. As a teenager I grew away from it - in spite of this, having little record of my recipes from that time feels like a missing arm - and the answer for me now to "what do you bake in Japan ?" is roughly bread, pizza and pastry. In the last couple of years I have made Ecclefechan tart, millionaire shortbread, tablet and one more thing I can think of right now. If I get round to sourcing a proper powerful hand mixer, I'd like to see if I can master the genoise technique. The occasional times I ever made a Victoria or all-in-one sponge weren't very inspiring (though a long time ago in what has turned out to be a one-off, I had great success with a rolled-up chocolate sponge log, following Delia Smith's recipe). The one other thing was, I tried adapting my easy & delicious lemon cheesecake to raspberry (I used too much liquid; it leaked. It remained delicious). Reading your post has inspired two thoughts - (1) I could try some Japanese-style baking... some day ; and (2) yuzu cheesecake - particularly as this is a recipe that showcases the bright, bright freshness of the citrus fruit, using both zest and juice. We're just coming in to yuzu season. Yes I like this idea. Sorry to be far from the meat of your topic.

The deep-fryer's friend. And it's a casserole, it's a baking tray, it's a wrap-sealed fridge box; it's a cupboard-tidy for pot lids, it's... Ha ha ! Judiu, I'm sorry I didn't see your post till now. Yes, I'm looking for a bit more crunch in my sausage mix

Ah. Well, if it's really about keeping a low-alcohol house - for whatever reason - I still like the idea of buying your wine, whisky or brandy, boiling off the alcohol from the whole batch and keeping the result. Surely that will give the most authentic alcohol-free substitute. Ethanol boils at 79C / 172F, so use a thermometer and heat until you get the liquid a few degrees past that and you'll know the alcohol's gone, or alternatively look for, for example, a 40% volume reduction if your spirit is 40% alcohol / 80 proof. Normally, wine exposed to the air goes off as the alcohol slowly turns to vinegar. Now I think about it, I'm not sure why the alcohol in spirits doesn't. Is the action in wine bacterial ? Either way, I don't know what would be the keeping properties of a de-alcohol'ed wine, whisky or brandy, but freezing should be possible and refrigeration might even suffice. In the supermarket's baking section you can normally find little bottles of alcohol-free 'brandy' or 'whisky' flavouring. I wouldn't be surprised if they are prepared from the source spirits in just this way. As for Absinthe, that's already a de-natured pastiche of something else - a pastiche of something of which Pastis is probably a previous pastiche. If sweetness is OK, the French make 'Anisette' which is a fruit-cordial equivalent of Pastis in the way a raspberry fruit cordial is non-alcoholic Lejay Framboise. Substitutions. Nothing in any dish is indispensable, is it, other than good main ingredient(s) and a judicious amount of salt ? Spot the quote: "... try simplifying a recipe which calls for rather a lot of ingredients down to the barest essentials. You may well find that the dish is more pleasing in its primitive form, and then you will know that your recipe was too fanciful. If, on the other hand, the dish seems to lack savour, to be a little bleak or insipid, start building it up again. By the end of this process, you will have discovered what is essential to that dish, what are the extras which enhance it, and at what point it is spoilt by over-elaboration. This system is also useful in teaching one how to judge a recipe for oneself, instead of following it blindly from a cookery book".

That pancake looks good, Jenni. Is there a lot of egg in it ? What's the green ?

- Cottage pie - (minimum) A layer of tinned corned beef broken up with a fork A layer of tinned baked beans A layer of instant mash (adjusting salt can improve it a lot) Bake for 35 minutes or so at 350F. (improvements) Some real mashed potato browned mince (and onions), seasoned, in place of corned beef optional cheese on top - Stewed mince - (minimum) Fry some chopped onion add minced beef, cook till the red colour is gone add chopped carrots and water to not-quite-cover Season with salt & pepper, tasting to check simmer for minimum 20 minutes Serve with mash; rice; or bread for that matter. (improvements / variations) Brown the mince properly - not every surface of all of it but think of it as a big hamburger, say, browning on both sides vary the vegetables - peas ? frozen mixed chopped veg ? add breadcrumbs (equivalent to 1/5 - 1/4 the meat volume ?) for a thicker sauce enrich the sauce with stock cube / tomato puree / can of tomatoes / herbs / some vinegar / worcester sauce - Cheerful chicken - Mix yoghurt, tinned tomatoes just crushed by hand, chopped onion, curry powder (you're flavouring here, not making a curry), salt. Pour over chicken leg portions in baking tray. Bake 1hr at 350F. Mmm. Rice or bread again (buttered toast ?). Shortcut - jar of pasta sauce replaces the tomato & onion Would it be a stretch too far to suggest a breadmaker ? Accompanied by a big bag of flour and a cheap re-zero-ing electric scale ? I even add the water by weight these days - and it's not a disaster if you miss by even 10 grams. 8g salt 15g sugar 15g oil (optional) 5g instant yeast 400g wholewheat bread flour 265g water, in my case Point being, of course, that there is no convenience food quite like it in the carbs range. It's fresh, it's healthy, all the ingredients keep forever; it's there when you want it - at point of use there's no peeling, no boiling, no draining, no washing up.

Hmm. I meant to say above, "... this topic bubbling up again is a nice coincidence... ". Friends in high places ? In those days it didn't advertise itself as a component of the The Famous Grouse in the way it now does, but I grew up only 5 miles or so from Glen Turret. We Perthshire lads always considered Grouse our local whisky nevertheless. (Colin Field would be pleased with my endorsement of his choice, I'm sure). At the same time it seems to me that the ginger provides plenty of 'bite' for a Whisky Mac. The Famous Grouse is a good blend, but not the smoothest, and given the choice you could do well with Dewar's or to repeat myself again, Teachers Highland Cream, that I like as the smoothest of the blended whiskies that I've come across. I'd choose Grouse first in any of the milk / cream / honey type of combinations, where Teachers would be adding smooth to smooth like insult to injury. (On taste I rate Grouse better than any JW, Bell's, Whyte & McKay, Cutty Sark and certain others in any application). All this assuming I were maintaining a stock of various whiskies, and a serious aficionado - in reality where I am now, Grouse suddenly doubled in price at some point a year or so ago, and is now significantly undercut by blended Scotch of equal quality, if different character. I wonder if there's a topic around eG on Blended Scotch whiskies. ETA: The other popular combination in 'the old country' of course was Scotch & Wry - something of a curate's egg, but we liked it.

Hi, Mike. No, but it's definitely a drink rather than a dessert, if not exactly a cocktail. It's a mixture of fine oatmeal, clear honey, cold water and whisky, bottled, sealed and left for a couple of days. I checked, and the book's out of print - according to it (British measures) 1/2lb, 1/2lb, 1 cup, 2 pints, in that order. "Traditional Scottish Food" (Chambers) also describes: Lamb's Milk 1 part whisky 2 parts cold fresh milk

That's interesting. In Scotland what you've just described is known as a hot toddy. A Whisky Mac is a scotch-and-ginger cocktail using (Crabbie's) Green Ginger wine, half-amd-half or a bit stronger. And this topic bubbling up again, because as I mentioned today on another thread, a very common approach to low-key whisky drinking in Scotland - when folk drop round casually on a weekend afternoon, say - is to take it diluted to taste with good water. In the countryside, water from the tap. If your water's not so tasty, then bottled. Often no ice, funnily enough - we like to say you can taste the whisky better that way, though it's hard to blame anyone for it in a hot climate. Drinking whisky neat can be a good way to show how tough you are, but it may not be very fair to the drinker or to the whisky. I can't think of an original Scotch cocktail. If we say that Drambuie is basically Scotch and syrup, then there's the 'Dan Sting' - equal measures Vodka, Drambuie, Cointreau, topped up with lemonade (read: 7-up, or get fancy with homemade using lemon juice, sugar/syrup & water), serve with ice & twist. Very refreshing - like just drinking fruit juice... till the next morning. That's the only time in my life I was ever travel sick on a motorbike.

Wine in a box (i.e. a vacuum bag in a box) is a super-convenient way to keep 'opened' wine fresh and accessible. Vacuum stopper sets like 'Vacuvin' aren't much more trouble. In general, as you say, you'll cook off the alcohol. Insofar as the alcohol is cooked off in any recipe, you're just looking for flavour components, aren't you ? With the vast range of alcohol flavours, it's hard to answer your question - mostly you'll want to investigate what makes the flavours in the drink. What makes Vermouth ? What vodka ? What Noilly Prat ? And so on. What are the main alcohols you cook with ? Jack Daniels always tasted like bubble gum to me. Probably the best substitutes for brandy and whisky are each other - so you could choose your poison and stick with it, particularly if you choose one of the smoother ones - in blended Scotch, Teachers and Grouse are good value, and pleasant to drink too, particularly split with some good water at room temperature, IMO. Back to wine again, if you're making a lot of reductions, I'm speculating but I imagine you could reduce a whole bottle and freeze that in cubes, the same way you can do for stock (spirits particularly won't freeze solid with their alcohol still in them, will they ?). It's never seemed enough of a problem round here to have an opened bottle of wine - or have to open one In some recipes - particularly cold desserts - you keep the alcohol content intact, don't you ? Traditional India had it's Bhang Lassi... sometimes the only substitute for one alcohol will be another.

... and balsamic vinegar has its range of quality levels, with some very complex flavours in the high-end products. Of course stock is a liquid that has good flavour to use in the sort of amount one uses wine or beer; in desserts, orange, lemon and so on can do similar things to brandy or whisky. For brandy in, say, pate, there's all sorts of things to add a depth of flavour - browned onions, anchovy, paprika, curry powder or roasted cumin... juniper berries will give some of the character of gin. To follow DerekW's point about wine & wood, much of the flavour in whisky or brandy comes from the (old sherry) casks. If you're trying to keep an alcohol-free house (unruly kids ? drunken pets ?) as opposed to avoiding buying a whole bottle just for one shot, you could try buying the bottle, cooking off the alcohol and keeping the product.

I'd like to add a comment about 'santoku' knives, which were a point of discussion a couple of pages back in this topic. 'Santoku' 三徳 literally means 'three merits' or 'three specialties'. I think that this was originally coined referring to fish, vegetables and meat. In other words, translating into colloquial English, it's a multi-purpose knife - another name commonly used is 'ban-nobocho' 万能包丁 (literally '10,000-function knife', but translated as 'all-purpose' or 'almighty'). It was designed originally as a multi-purpose knife for the average family kitchen - it's hardly surprising if it seems a 'Jack of all trades but master of none' to a serious cooking hobbyist or professional chef. As for 'wabocho' 和包丁, as Chad says, this means 'Japanese knife' or maybe 'Japanese knives'. These are distinct from 'yobocho' 洋包丁 - western knives, or indeed 'chukabocho' 中華包丁 or Chinese-style knives. Distinct styles of knife within the Japanese category - maybe we should say the traditional Japanese category - include of course: Debabocho 出刃包丁 - 'buck tooth (blade) knife' - heavy knife for breaking down fish Usubabocho 薄刃包丁 - 'thin blade knife' - for vegetables. Also called Nakiri, 'side dish knife' Sashimibocho 刺身包丁 - 'sashimi knife' - speaks for itself. According to Japanese Wikipedia, The deba is named after the particular buck-toothed master forger at Osaka's Sakaishi market who developed it; the Kansai (West Japan) usuba has a more rounded tip than the Kanto (East Japan) one. The sashimi knives are the longest and thinnest of the traditional Japanese ones - 'yanagiba' or 'willow blade' 柳刃 is a name for the more pointed Kansai style sashimi knife, also known as 'shobu' 正夫, literally 'correct husband' (!). The Kanto-style sashimi knife is straighter, with a point that seems cut off more flat, and thinner overall than the yanagiba. This knife is known as a 'takohiki' 蛸引 or 'octopus cutter', though that doesn't mean it's specialised for only octopus. ("It's said that the Kanto style is unpointed to prevent the more excitable Edo-ites from using it in a fight"). Because the yanagiba's point makes it better suited to fine work, amongst other reasons, in modern times it has become the standard sashimi knife nation-wide. These traditional styles can be considered the standards inherited from the 270-year Edo era, before Japan opened again to the World. All of the 'yobocho' Western-style Japanese knives we know and love - like Gyuto, Sujihiki, Yo-deba and Honesuki - are developments in Japan under foreign influence some time in the last 150 years or so. Before that, meat was not eaten here to any great extent - hence the focus of the traditional knives on fish & vegetables. If we really take the santoku definition to mean 'for fish, vegetables and meat' - a definition repeated by Global, then we must also consider it a development of the same period. It would take a more dedicated scholar than me to pinpoint its emergence accurately. (Edit to add) This page at Vivahome says that 'the yobocho style called 'santoku' emerged after the (second world) war, when consumption of western food spread in Japan, and also quotes 'meat, fish & veg' as the 'three specialties'. (It's easy to see why one knife for everything was important in those straitened times). It also says that before that, the nakiri was the commonly-used knife in the family kitchen. Sorry to anyone who it offends, not to have been striict with my Japanese romanisations.

Hi, Fooey. That was a nice surprise - I'm sure that'll make great butter chicken, too, but the recipe he gives in Sainsbury's 'Curries' is different. No tomatoes or tomato puree in the sauce; no paprika; no 'onion masala sauce' or other standard sauce; the chicken tikka preparation isn't a separate recipe - a question of format only of course, but their are big differences, in fact: no cream or cream cheese in the marinade; it uses mild curry paste rather than garam masala, it uses vinegar, chillis and ginger, etc. - much more highly-flavoured, all round. Are we allowed to post published recipes ? I should also mention that Pat C's recipe for mild curry powder / paste from the same book is the blend I usually make to this day.

Chris, you mentioned Jane Grigson already. I want a copy of French pork & charcuterie - I've had it on back order with Amazon for more than two years ! Her 'Good Things' is also, well, very good, with interesting commentary about idiosyncratically British things. Her 'Fish Book' is excellent and incredibly detailed and thorough. I have often used Elizabeth David's most famous 'French Provincial Cooking' as bedtime reading (maybe I have both feet firmly stuck in the 70's ). Her less-well-known 'English bread & yeast cookery' is also supposed to be excellent - another book I want. I have one of those Sainsbury books too, 'Curries' by Pat Chapman, picked up at a checkout in the 80's. I never got into using it extensively - much of it follows restaurant technique in using a batch-made curry sauce as a base for the dishes, but the recipes that we've cooked from it have always been excellent. I go back to 'Hasina kebabs' again and again, and I was only inches from posting his butter chicken in the 'reputation makers' thread - it never fails to stun. Lamb pasanda is also superb. By contrast my experience with one of Madhur Jaffrey's books has been more mixed. Is the Family Circle Recipe Encyclopedia available in the States ? It's a good source for standard recipes for a lot of Anglo stuff that'll be foreign to Americans.

It's worth telling the woodworking guys that thickness is important. But yes, number 1, and particularly with a breadmaker, where the width of the loaf - if not it's height - is the thing, right ?

I've used my manual meat slicer (Porkert, cast iron with wooden base & various blades) to slice bread. I'm generally only doing one loaf at a time, and I reverted to using my bread knife. Slice low down on the far side while watching the thickness, then draw down on the nearside to equal it - that's my method. I'm not very good, but I'm past cutting things that the toaster can use as an excuse for an impromptu bonfire night. I have a dream that involves a woodworking friend building a bread-cutting-form that has a base, and two slotted sides like a toast rack, so I can hold a loaf in there and slice away. It's that sort of fantasy that keeps me going.

Elizabeth David suggests 1.5 hours at 310F (10 minutes at a higher temp for final browning) for a traditional Gratin Dauphinois - and it's not as if the shape would determine a very different cooking time for the format you're aiming for. Maybe your potatoes and your cream would liaise better after a lomger acquaintance.

I give my support to any establishment that feels it can still make it despite imposing a dress code - just as long as they're up front about it. My personal view is that the quality of the diner is in the diner, not in the diner's clothes. Infractions against decorum should be dealt with as such. IIRC Miss Manners always said that being overbearing about pointing out anyone's rudeness, is just as rude. Do restaurant dress codes have roots in the depession era, when not being able to dress might mean you'd not be able to pay ?

As Prawncrackers pointed out recently, you may get daikon in Indian / Pakistani / Caribbean stores, by the name 'mooli'. Maybe Indo-Pak superstore, "8101 W Broad St, Richmond, VA 23294. Cross Street: Between Old Parham Rd and Carousel Ln".

I buy Saf-Instant active dried yeast in a 500g (about 1lb) pack and keep it in a sealed freezer bag, in the fridge. (The cost savings over the little sachets is phenomenal). It takes me close to two years to get through that amount, and it does get tired towards the end - I used the last batch a tablespoon at a time in the last couple of months, whereas fresh, a teaspoon does the job. I should think about freezing half the pack.

Thawing overnight in the fridge, then 1.5 hours out of the fridge, won't get you close to the equivalent of 2-3 hours proofing at room temperature. It might take 30 minutes for the croissants even to reach room temperature. In my experience, pizza dough will develop at fridge temperature, in about two days, as far as it will in 3-4 hours at room temperature. You can freeze your dough (stops completely), refrigerate it (develops slowly) or keep it at room temperature (develops fastest near 98 degrees, slower in colder rooms) - it will eventually reach the point where it can be baked. Would you get better results by bringing the croissants from freezer to fridge one or two days beforehand ?

It sounds good - as do spring onion soda crackers January is high season for fresh shirasu, isn't it ? I think that's when people seek them out at Enoshima fishmongers.

Oddly enough, batto are one of the things that Tokyu Hands sells at a competitive price - they have a good range in both staoinless steel and aluminium. I settled on a big stainless batto as a lasagne tin - I got it with a low grid to sit inside too, and I'm amazed at how many uses I've found for it (including catching mince coming out of the mincer...)

Aren't these called "batto"　バット here ? It's one of those loanwords whose derivation has remained a mystery.

Prawn shells & heads deep-fried so the oil can be used in mayo is pretty good.